


The Best Kind of Happy Ending

by Dogsled



Category: due South
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5420048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogsled/pseuds/Dogsled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray and Fraser are tearing their way south during a spring storm, dashing through the latitudes as they rush back to Chicago. But why? What is this bad news that they've heard, and why has it hit Fraser so hard? Can there be any chance of a happy ending, after this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Kind of Happy Ending

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phenyx_tP](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phenyx_tP/gifts).



> Pivotal mentions of character death, but please don't be discouraged by that! I've used some writing tricks here to build the suspense, so hold your nerve! It's worth it! (I hope)

Fraser considered this whole thing his fault, naturally. It was just how he was with his guilt thing, though when it didn't come to blaming himself it was all "these things happen, Ray" and "it's a logical extrapolation under the circumstances." No, this time, Fraser was on the blame train all the way to its final destination, which in this case was Chicago.

\--And there wasn't a train, there was just Ray. After thanking the trucker that they'd hitchhiked with the last stretch of the way, they'd picked up the GTO from the self storage place. Ray had only reluctantly tucked his pride and joy away there when they headed north, and reunited, he'd stroked the steering wheel almost as lovingly as he tended to Fraser in their moments alone. Fraser didn't have much patience for the delay, on this occasion; he shifted in his seat like he was sitting on a porcupine, and shot unpleasant glares across at Ray until he started the engine.

The drive was very much like the rest of it. Ray kept trying to make conversation, and Fraser sat sullenly, silently in the passenger's seat looking like someone had just thrown his favorite auntie into the road, and he'd been the one to run her over. It was painful, and no amount of obvious baiting from Ray seemed to do the trick. 

He tried starting an argument about the town of Moose Jaw: "Chicago, that's a real name for a place. Detroit. New York. Moose Jaw? It's a dumb name, Fraser. What, they name it after a bone some guy found, or something? That's not how you name a place. Otherwise you'd get places named like... I don't know: Cougar Vomit, and The Place Dean Fell On His Ass..." No matter what he tried, Fraser didn't rise to his bait. He watched the spring snow beat against the passenger-side window, and only commented six minutes later that they were now ten miles closer to Chicago than they had been before.

It was, without a doubt, the most uncomfortable road trip they'd ever made together. Ray had been overjoyed to get behind the wheel of his beloved car again, but Fraser made it feel like corporal punishment. Between the frosty weather and the frostier company, it was a loathsome trip, and Ray found himself wishing that the Pontiac was worse on fuel, just so that the stops would be closer together.

The first glimpse of Lake Michigan, after all that, was a breath of fresh inland-sea air. Metaphorically speaking. Ray didn't dare roll down the windows. It was brisk to say the least, and the fact that the car was clinging to the road in the snowstorm was the best that Ray could say they had going for them. Ray expected Fraser to loosen up at the sight of the Great Lake, but instead he froze up like an icicle, expression as impenetrable as a diamond coffin.

Ray tried not to take it personally, but it was hard. Fraser - ever since they got the news - had been hard to deal with. Inconsolable. They'd beaten back the way they came, pushed the dogs hard, until Ray had had to bite Fraser's head off just to give them all a proper meal and a proper rest--Hell, his Mountie had wanted to leave him behind in the back of beyond, NWT, just because he couldn't spare the half a day it took to get the dogs back to the guy that they'd hired them from.

Ray knew this kind of emotional, knew it was dangerous, knew it was the kind that just maybe might get one of them killed. The fact was, if he wasn't right there to temper Fraser, calm him down a bit, then there'd be no doubt: Fraser would be that dead guy, and it'd be Ray who got to be guilty next, frustrated that he'd not been there, pissed that he hadn't tried hard enough to make Fraser hang about a few hours so that they could stick together.

The thing was, though, that the closer they got to Chicago, the more terrified Fraser looked. The guy was practically turning to stone right there, petrifying like pigeon shit on a windowsill, and Ray didn't have a clue what to do about it. He tried comforting, saying the first words that he had in hundreds of miles to try and sooth his companion - his lover. 

"It's gonna be alright. You got that, right?" He touched his knee, and when that didn't work, he squeezed Fraser's hand - shit, he was trembling - and that was a mistake, as it turned out, because all of Fraser's fear and guilt suddenly jumped over to Ray like it was a viral strain of panic and uncertainty. He suddenly didn't know if he believed it himself, like if the solid, dependable center of his world couldn't deal with any of this, how was he supposed to? He felt guilty for his comments about Moose Jaw, his bad mood throughout the whole trip. Fraser was clearly really struggling, and Ray didn't know how to console him.

They were both utterly silent by the time they pulled into the parking lot at Northwestern Memorial. The GTO purred to a stop, and Ray rest his hands on the steering wheel, trying for once to contain the urge to tap his fingers. He felt more anxious than he ever had--before any job, any interview, any berating by the LT, any gunfight. Proposing to Stella would have come close, if not for the fact that he hadn't prepared, he'd spat the words out in a vain effort to make her stay with him, and magically that crap had worked. No, he was terrified, but then so was Fraser, so he had to get over his nerves for the sake of his partner. It was what motivated him to get up, circle the car and pull open the passenger-side door, urging the stiff Mountie from the seat he hadn't stood up from, even to pee, for almost eight straight hours. Guy had an iron bladder.

"Come on, buddy. You can do this. You just walk in there and ask to see him, you got it?"

"I can't, Ray." Trying to move Fraser when he was being a dead weight was like trying to take a dump with a polar bear watching. Completely impossible.

"Yeah you can," Ray insisted, giving the arm a shake as though he could loosen up the entire Mountie by wobbling the appendage. "You just... One foot in front of the other, yeah? Come on. Fraser, I can't do this without you."

The silent treatment came back, Ray thought for absolutely no reason whatsoever, though in Fraser's case there was always _something_ , and so after thirty seconds of pulling and shaking and complaining and getting nowhere, Ray pulled his secret weapon. 

"Ben. Ben, listen to me." For some reason, calling Fraser by his first name was like saying the magic word. Maybe it was a kid thing, built-in obedience to parental figures sort of stuff, but it did the trick no matter how strange it still felt sometimes for Ray to use it at all. "Ben," he said, "You're gonna go in there and ask to see Ray Vecchio. You and me together, okay? I'm gonna be right there with you."

It was hard to get him out of the car, harder still to make him walk across to the hospital. Fraser couldn't talk, when they got there. He just stood there, looking all deer-in-headlights, as the receptionist stared back at them both.

"Vecchio," Ray finally said, irritated. "Ray Vecchio. Gold badge, bad dress sense, bullet in his lung?"

"Morgue," the receptionist told him, dryly.

Ray blanched. Why did it have to be the morgue? When he looked over, Fraser was white too. He looked like he was about to fall over. "Yeah, alright. Morgue it is, I guess."

With an overwhelming sense of dread, Ray tried to convince Fraser he could walk down to the morgue on his own. Halfway there, Fraser started moving so slowly that Ray considered grabbing a wheelchair and pushing him the rest of the way.

"Fraser..."

They still, somehow, managed to get there in one piece. Ray pushed the door open and held it, and Fraser took a deep breath and stepped in behind him. Vecchio was waiting for him, inside.

A moment later, and Fraser was pulled into a brisk hug. Vecchio looked totally exhausted. His meticulous appearance was disturbingly untidied, and yet despite the fact that he clearly hadn't showered, slept, or possibly even eaten in two days, he summoned enough energy to wrap his old friend up in an enormous, back-patting hug, smiling sadly. When they were deep in their hug, Vecchio looked over at Ray, too, offering the slightest, most apologetic sort of wave.

"It's good to see you, Ray," Fraser said, softly. The same name thing was still sort of annoying.

"Yeah. Wish it was under different circumstances. I'm sorry, Benny."

"She got what was coming to her," Ray hissed, spitefully. He watched Fraser tense in Vecchio's hands. "Well it's true," Ray pressed on, summoning all of his courage. "Look what she did to you--both of you." He strode across, pulled the white sheet off the body on the table, and then quickly threw it back, panicking. Dead body! Dead body! "Woah, buddy,” he told himself, under his breath. “This is not the corpse that you're looking for."

"She's over here," Vecchio told him, rolling his eyes. Untangling himself from Fraser, Vecchio stepped over to the numbered drawers, opened one of the doors and slid the tray out. He pulled the sheet back, revealing twisted black curls, soft lips, the blueish-alabaster skin of death. She was beautiful--had been beautiful. There was a bloodless wound to her chest, just below her breastbone. Ray recognized a lethal bullet wound, fired at a decent enough range; he'd seen enough of them.

"This is her?" Ray asked, "Victoria?"

"It's her," Vecchio insisted.

Fraser hadn't said a word, but now both Rays looked to him for some kind of reassurance that he hadn't died of shock. Ray, for all his guilt, was still distinctly aware of the fact that they'd just driven 3000 miles for Fraser to look at a dead woman, and he had no desire to see him trapped, drowning in grief over her. She might have been important to him once, but Fraser was his now, his lover, and besides which she'd betrayed him. Got him shot, for Heaven's sake.

But Fraser looked like he was going to start growing roots, right there, and Ray reached out to give his arm a helpless sort of tug.

"So... We're here. We've seen her. Can we - uh - get outta here, you know, please? You know how dead people give me the heebie jeebies, Fraser."

Finally Fraser spoke, but it wasn't what either of his partners - former partners - wanted to hear. "Can you give us a moment alone?"

"Yeah," Vecchio answered for him. “I want to show you something anyway, Stanley."

Ray shot Vecchio a glare, though it wasn't much of one. He felt a little like a bad boyfriend leaving Fraser here with Victoria. Who got jealous over a dead woman, anyway? But he held his breath, took one last unhappy look around the morgue - which he hated - and then nodded firmly. He couldn't get out of the room fast enough.

Unfortunately, he didn't have a clue where they were going after that. Vecchio started leading the way at random. When they approached maternity, though, first striding past one immensely pregnant woman and then an exhausted looking, unshaved man with a brand new, empty stroller, Ray started to hesitate, slowing down so much that Vecchio actually had to tell him to keep up.

"Wait, but..."

Oh, he had a bad feeling about this. A bad, awful feeling. He knew where they were going, and he was beginning to guess what was at the end of that path.

The kid was about two, Ray thought. There was no missing that he was Fraser's, eyes as blue as an arctic summer sky, black hair twisted into tight little curls on top of his head. He was playing nicely with one of the other children in the creche, sharing blocks, clearly confident, bright and smiling. God, but the sight of him broke his heart, not just because the kid's mother was a monster who had tried to bring Fraser down, or even that he'd lost her, but because of how this would affect Fraser; what this would do to him. Vecchio had wanted him to come down here, he'd insisted, and Ray had thought it was a damn long trip just to look at a dead criminal. He'd let it be, accepted that Fraser needed the closure. Now he knew why they were really here.

"We found the kid in the car after the shootout. Fast asleep. We don't even know what name she was using, so we're stumped with what to call the kid."

"Why didn't you mention this on the phone?" Ray asked, still feeling a little hollowed out. His voice seemed to echo before it reached his ears, he thought.

"You kidding? I couldn't do that to you. Fraser's barely holding it together," Vecchio assessed. "He'd have been catatonic if he knew he had a kid that he'd never seen."

Ray stayed quiet, after that, squaring his shoulders. He loved kids, he did, he'd always wanted children, but in some ways he'd already given that idea up. Going after Fraser the way he had, when they'd been off on their little adventure? That had been his way of finding peace with that side of him, accepting that he'd never be a father. Now? Ray didn't even know if Fraser could stand to be around this kid, not that it was anything like the poor tyke's fault who its mother was, but if Fraser did stick with him, then the kid came with Fraser, no questions asked.

How were they even going to break this to Fraser?

He needn't have asked. Fraser was an expert tracker. Even off his game, in a hospital of all places, he tracked his Rays down easily enough, and before they'd finished their conversation, he appeared like a ghost in the hallway behind them, so that when they actually spotted him - an orderly with a cart almost crashed into him, since he was barely moving - Fraser was just standing there staring, looking out into the creche with some kind of unreadable expression. Horror? Hope? Who even knew, Ray just knew that the look terrified him.

"Fraser?" Ray asked, waving off Vecchio in order to head over and confront Fraser himself. He touched his arm, and then his face, but didn't try to get between him and the sight of his son. His flipping kid, right there in the flesh! No wonder Fraser was breaking up. "Hey. Hey hey hey. It's okay."

Platitudes were the best he could do. There was nothing that he could really say, and Ray only barely held onto Fraser's sleeve as he wobbled forward like a zombie, let himself through the little child gate, and then left the two of them, he and Vecchio, behind on the other side. Ray stood there, forlornly, watching as Fraser went over and knelt beside the kid, not so much as looking back at him once.

They stood there like that, watching, Ray--his former partner, and Ray--his lover, until Vecchio crept over, silent but for the squeaking of his expensive shoes, and laid his hand on Kowalski's shoulder. "Come on. Let's go get some coffee, or something."

Coffee? No, Ray didn't want coffee. He needed some time alone, needed to drive, needed to just...get some air. Suddenly the hospital, the smell of baby shampoo and diapers, was more than Ray could bear. He shook Vecchio off, stepping quickly back, and turned away. He couldn't breathe. If he could just get out the doors, get to his car... By the time he made it past the front desk, there were tears in his eyes, and his chest felt so tight that he was convinced he was having some kind of heart attack. This couldn't be happening.

Fortunately, Vecchio wasn't right on his tail, and Ray climbed into the safety of his car completely alone, slammed the door and fell panting back into his seat, his eyes wide. His body felt heavy, the world all tunneled in at the edges, his head spinning. A panic attack, Fraser had explained to him, one time. He just had to breathe more slowly, try and get some kind of emotional control. Hah! God, he was shaking.

Time must have blurred, because finally - finally - there was a little tap at the passenger-side window, and it was Fraser standing on the other side of it. Fraser, finally looking like himself, probably about to come and tell Ray that it was over. He had to raise this kid alone. There was a certain level of relief to the fact that Fraser didn't look like weathered stone any more, that he looked human, at last, after thousands of miles and almost four days of driving, and dogsleds, and trucks. But Ray knew that a kid changed something. Kids always did.

Reluctantly, Ray nodded, and Fraser climbed in beside him. For a second he was really still, as though he was about to go back to silent mode all over again, but then Fraser reached across and laid his hand on his knee, and smiled at him. It was the saddest little smile Ray had ever seen, and it hurt. Ray was afraid for what that smile meant.

"Ray, you know I love you..." Fraser began.

"Let me stop you there," Ray said, quickly. "I know this talk, alright. I don't need to hear it again."

"Ray."

"I just don't, okay. I'm tired. I've had enough. You wanna tell me it's over, don't bother. I gotta get a headstart on drinking myself to sleep."

"Ray," Fraser pressed again, sounding irritated enough that Ray fell quiet. "I'm not leaving you. I just... I just wanted to tell you that, because I love you, I never tell you how grateful I am for everything you do for me, everything you put up with. Like traveling almost three thousand miles in four days, in a spring storm, just to accompany me here."

"All right?" Ray answered, uncertainly, not sure where this was leading.

"I'd understand if this... If this was all too much for you. His mother was--"

"Doesn't matter who his mother was, Fraser. He's your kid. You gotta do what you gotta do, even if it means it's over for us."

Fraser blanched, his eyes going a little rounder. "It's over for us?"

"Yeah? I mean... Isn't it?"

"Is that what you actually want, Ray? I was rather hoping that... I don't have any idea how to raise a child."

"Er..." Ray was so prepared for the worst that he had no idea, honestly, what Fraser was trying to tell him. "Uh...say again?"

"Raising a child, Ray. I had considered whether I would be parent material once or twice, but I always imagined that a family would involve planning and forethought..."

"Well, you know, Fraser, that's what God invented condoms for..."

It was too lighthearted a comment, mostly because Ray expected to be admonished that God hadn't invented condoms, it was a man called... Well. Whoever invented them. Fraser would know. Instead, Fraser just blushed beet red and looked at his knees, so Ray said "Wow," and left it at that.

"So will you?" Fraser asked, three minutes of silence later.

"Will I what?" Ray asked. He was stewing over the fact that somehow, Fraser had managed to hit the mark the one time he'd slept with this woman, and that he hadn't had his "always prepared" thing up his sleeve when it actually mattered. Ray had been together with Stella a decade, and they'd never so much as had a single pregnancy scare.

"Will you raise this child with me, Ray? As our own?"

It was the obvious question, considering where they'd been leading to, but it came so far out of left field to Ray's stalling brain that it might as well have been gibberish. He had to actually sit and think about it, when in reality the answer was glaringly obvious.

"Yes. How is that even a question, Fraser? Yes, of course I will. You freaking... Man, you almost killed me. Of course I will, if that's what you want. You and me, huh?"

"You and me, Ray." Fraser sounded relieved, like he hadn’t expected the answer, either.

Ray shook his head, exasperated. He could barely even believe his luck. Fraser and a little kid? A family? A son? If he'd known he was driving south for that, he'd have put his foot down. He was getting everything he'd ever wanted, thought he'd given up on. He was getting Fraser, too. Hell, Ray felt like he'd just won the lottery; he felt a million dollars.

"So it's...it's a happy ending after all, huh?"

"There's no such thing, Ray. It's going to be difficult. There will be challenges..."

"It's a happy ending, Fraser. Don't argue with me about this. Challenges I can deal with, that's just how stories work. You gotta get through the telling first. But there's always a happy ending. There's gonna be that moment where we're sitting in front of a fire, Dief on the rug, kidlet between us, reading the Hungry Caterpillar, and we get to call that happy. You with me? Can you do that, Fraser? 'Cause if not, you can drop the whole thing."

Fraser rolled his eyes. It was a little melodramatic, but he understood what Ray was trying to say. "All right, Ray. It's a happy ending."

So Fraser bent across, pressing the first kiss to his mouth that he’d given Ray in more than twenty degrees of latitude...and it was. It was the best kind of happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-read by my friend Zo! Dear Phenyx, I hope you enjoy this gift, and happy dS sekrit holidays!


End file.
